A. D. 327. A. D. 328. of Jerusalem. He ordered him to cover the tomb of our Saviour with a magnificent church.* Helena, the emperor's mother, went herself to Palestine, and directed search to be made for the Holy Sepulchre. It had been buried under the foundation of Adrian's edifices. A Jew, apparently a Christian, who, according to Sozomenes, had preserved memorials of his forefathers, pointed out the place where the tomb must have been. Helena had the glory to restore to religion the sacred monument. She likewise discovered three crosses, one of which is said to have been recognised by its miracles, as the cross on which the Redeemer suffered. Not only was a magnificent church erected at the Holy Sepulchre, but two others were built by Helena; one over the manger of the Messiah, at Bethlehem, and the other on the Mount of Olives, in memory of the ascension of the Lord.‡ Chapels, oratories, and altars by degrees marked all the places consecrated by the acts of the Son of Man: the oral traditions were committed to writing, and thus secured from the treachery of memory. Eusebius in his History of the Church, his Life of Constantine, and his Onomasticum urbium et locorum Sacræ Scripturæ, has, in fact, described the holy places as we see them at the present day. He speaks of the Holy Sepulchre, of Calvary, of Bethlehem, of the Mount of Olives, and the grotto where Christ revealed the mysteries to the apostles. After him comes St. Cyril, whom I have already quoted more than once he shows us the sacred stations such as they were before and after their embellishments by Constantine and St. Helena. Socrates, Sozomenes, Theodoret, Evagrius then give the succession of several bishops from Constantine to Justinian: Macarius, Maximus,** Cyril, Herrennius, Heraclius, Hilarius,‡‡ Socr. lib. I. c. 9. Eus. in Const. lib. III. c. 25-43. † Socr. c. 17.-Sozom. lib. III. c. 1. Eus. in Const lib. III. c. 43. Eus, in Const. lib. II. c. I. ¶ Socrat. lib. I. é. 17. ** Socrat. lib. II. c. 24.-Sozom: lib. II. c. 20. # Sozom, lib, IV. c. 30. John,* Sallust, Martyrius, Elias, Peter, Macarius II.,† and John, the fourth of that name. A. D. 361, Und. Val. Theod. and A. D. 476. Und. Justin. Under Tiber St. Jerome, who retired to Bethlehem about the A. D. 384. year 385, has left us in various parts of his works, the most complete delineation of the sacred places, "It would be too long," says he in one of his letters,¶to go through all the ages, from the ascen sion of the Lord to the time in which we live, to re- II. late how many bis hops, how many martyrs, how many teachers have visited Jerusalem, for they would have thought themselves possessed of less piety and learning had they not adored Jesus Christ on the very spot where the gospel began to diffuse its light from the summit of the cross." St. Jerome declares, in the same letter, that pil- A. D. $85. grims from India, Ethiopia, Britain, and Hibernia,** He resorted to Jerusalem, and sung in their various languages the praises of Christ, around his tomb. says that alms were sent from all parts to Calvary; he mentions the principal places of devotion in Palestine and adds that, in the city of Jerusalem alone, there were so many fanctuaries that it was impossible A, D. 385. to visit them all in one day. This letter is addressed to Marcella, and is conjectured to have been written by St. Paula and St. Eustochium, though it is ascribed" in manuscripts to St. Jerome. Could then the believers who, from the days of the apostles to the conclusion of the fourth century, had frequented the tomb of our Saviour, could they, I ask, be ignorant of the situation of that tomb? The same father of the church, in his letter to A. D. 404; Eustochium, on the death of Paula, thus describes the stations visited by the pious Roman lady: "She prostrated herself," says he," before the cross, on the top of Calvary; at the Holy Sepulchre A. D. 404. A. D. 379. she embraced the stone which the angel rolled away, and kissed, with particular reverence the spot where the body of Christ was laid. She saw on Mount Sion, the pillar where our Saviour was bound and scourged with rods; the pillar then supported the portal of a church. She desired to be conducted to the place where the disciples were assembled when the Holy Ghost descended upon them. She then repaired to Bethlehem and stopped by the way at Rachel's sepulchre. She adored the manger of the Messiah, and pictured to herself the wise men and the shepherds as still present there. At Bethphage she found the monument of Lazarus, and the habitation of Martha and Mary. At Sichar she admired a church erected over Jacob's well, where Christ conversed with the Samaritan woman, and lastly; she found at Samaria the tomb of St. John the Baptist."* This letter is of the year 404; consequently more than fourteen centuries have elapsed since it was written. Read all the accounts of the Holy Land, all the travels from Arculfe's to mine and you will see that the pilgrims have invariably found and described the places marked by St. Jerome. Surely this is at least a high and imposing antiquity. A proof that the pilgrimages to Jerusalem were of older date than the time of St. Jerome, as that learned writer has expressly said, is to be found in the Itinerary from Bordeaux to Jerusalem. This Itinerary was composed, according to the ablest critics in 333, for the use of the pilgrims from Gaul.† Mannert is of opinion that it was a sketch of the route for some person charged with a commission by the Prince but it is much more natural to suppose that it was designed for a general purpose; and this is the more probable as the holy places are there described So much is certain, that Gregory of Nyssa cenEpist. ad Eustoch. : † See Wess. Præf. in Itin. p. 5. 37. 47.-Berg. Chem de l'Emp. + Geog. I sured the abuse, as early as his, time of pilgrimages to Jerusalem.* He had himself visited the holy places in 379; he particularly mentions Calvary, the Holy Sepulchre, the Mount of Olives, and Bethlehem. We find this journey among the works of the pious bishop, under the title of Iler Hierosolyma. St. Jerome like- A. D. 404. wise endeavoured to dissuade Paulina from undertaking a pilgrimage to the holy land.+ It was not only priests, recluses, bishops, and doctors that flocked from all quarters to Palestine at the period of which we are treating; but likewise females of high rank, even princesses and empresses. I have already mentioned Paula and Eustochium, and must not omit the two Melanias. The monastery of Bethiehem was filled with the most illustrious families of Rome who fled thither from Alaric. Fifty years before, Eutropia, widow of Maximian Hercules, had made the tour of Palestine, and destroyed the relics of idolatry which still appeared at the fair of Terebinthus near Hebron. In the age succeeding that of St. Jerome, we never lose sight of Calvary. It was then that Theodoret wrote his Ecclesiastical History, in which we find frequent mention of the Christian Sion. We have a still more distinct view of it in the Lives of the Anchor- A. D. 430 iles, by the same author. St. Peter, one of their number, performed the sacred journey. Theodoret himself passed through Palestine, where he surveyed with astonishment the ruins of the temple. The two pilgrimages of the empress Eudocia, wife of Theodosius the younger, took place in this century, She caused monasteries to be erected at Jerusalem, and there ended her days in retirement.a A. D. 450. The commencement of the sixth century, furnishes A. D. 500. us with the Itinerary of Antoninus of Placentia: he Epist. ad Ambros. Epist. ad Paulin. + Epist. XXII. § Hist. Relig. c. 6. Serm. II De Fine et Judicio. a Evagr. e. 20-Zonar. in Theod.II. This illustrious Athenian lady has already been mentioned in the first Memoir. A. D 500. 4. D. 573. A. D. 595. A. D. 613. A. D. 636. describes all the stations like St. Jerome. In this account I remark the burial-place of pilgrims, at the gate of Jerusalem, which plainly evinces the affluence of these pious travellers. The author found Palestine covered with churches and monasteries. He says, that the Holy Sepulchre was adorned with precious stones, Jewels, crowns of gold, necklaces and bracelets.* Gregory of Tours, the earliest historian of the French monarchy, also speaks in this century of the pilgrimages to Jerusalem. One of his deacons having gone to the Holy Land, had, with four other travellers, beheld a miraculous star at Bethlehem.† According to the same historian, there was then at Jerusalem a spacious monastery for the reception of travellers.‡ It was, without doubt, the same establishment that Brocard found two hundred years later. In the same century it was also that Justinian exalted the bishop of Jerusalem to the patriarchal dignity. The emperor presented to the holy sepulchre the sacred vessels which Titus had carried away from the temple. These vessels, which in 455, had fallen into the hands of Genseric, were recovered by Belisarius at Carthage.j Cosroes took Jerusalem in 613. Heraclius restored to the tomb of Christ, the real cross which the Persian monarch had taken away. Twenty-three years afterwards, Omar made himself master of the Holy city, which continued under the yoke of the Saracens till the time of Godfrey de Bouillon. In another part of this work will be found the history of the church of the Holy Sepulchre during these calamitous ages. It was saved by the invincible constancy of the believers of Judea: they never abandoned it, and the pilgrims, emulating their zeal, ceased not to throng to the sacred shore. Itin De Loc. Ter. Sanct. † Greg: Tur. de Martyr. lib I. c. 19. $ Procop. de Bell. Vand. lib. XI. |